RIC

Sherrie is an official resident of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago! The feeling walking onto her floor at the RIC is totally different than walking into the hospital.  There is more activity, more life, more progress. They have two big glass rooms right off of the elevator for therapy with patients. She is on a floor with many other head and neck trauma patients. With its bright colors, people of all ages receiving therapy, and lots of activity, it is a stark and welcome contrast to the hospital.

We met with her new doctors and the nursing staff, who are all very positive and warm. One neat change from the hospital is that we are encouraged to be VERY involved in her care and treatment. We will be trained in her physical therapy and care. It is so nice to feel like we can actively be helping her. The next few days will be full of evaluations from her speech language pathologist (SLP), Physical Therapist (PT), and medical team. They are going to assess where she is now from where she was 4 weeks ago- which is a big difference. While we go forward hoping to see as many positive signs as we have this last week, we remember what her doctor us today, "Remember that there is no set path for recovery, it happens at different rates and in different increments."

She has been a real trooper today with all of the movement, another round of evaluations, meeting new staff, and adjusting to another new environment.  This morning during her PT she was able to raise both legs in response to command to kick a ball. Many people have ask if her ability to respond to commands- such as kicking the ball and like Brittney wrote, moving her arms and squeezing our hands- means that she is awake. All of these actions are good signs that she's on her way, but don't mean that she is out of her coma. We are looking for her motor responses to be consistent, so that she can respond and follow commands at regular intervals, and other signs. This chart helped me make sense of awake vs coma:

http://www.medicinenet.com/coma/article.htm

And perhaps the biggest change of all for the day; Grandma Adams and I removed the No-Chip manicure that she has had on since her trip to the Dominican. It was like having a day at the spa with her- kind of :). We wrapped her fingers in nail polish remover and foil (which was quite a site), rubbed moisturizer into her fingers, painted her toes, and moisturized her face. It was a very fun, normal activity and it felt good to spend time with her doing something that I know she liked. Little by little, we are catching glimpses of our new normal and finding the joy in it.

Sherrie at the nail salon with Donovan and iPad on her lap- January 2012. There are few people who would be okay with getting pedicures with a  2 year old on their lap and a 1 year old on the lap next to you, but she made us feel like it was a natural thing to do!!